Religion, an overview

You too can be a militant agnostic

The fact remains that people believe in and worship gods of one form or another because they WANT to do so. Sometimes people believe because they're afraid to have to think for themselves and would rather have a "guidebook" as they progress through the chaos of life. The majority of people believe in one god or another because of the promise of Heaven or otherwise an Afterlife in Paradise. It's easy to understand this looking at where religion most likely had its genesis. (more puns?)

The earliest, so called, "religious" activity is that of burial. I recall reading somewhere of evidence that even the neanderthals stuffed their dead into the ground. Ignoring the questiong of whether this was because of some religious impulse or because someone picked up that a rotting corpse is not something you want laying around your backyard, Note that the eariest religious activity was very death intensive.

For all intents and purposes a (fresh) dead person looks like a sleeping person. Think: "What's wrong with grandma?" "She's asleep, Timmy." The eventual thought is... "When's she gonna wake up and where?" Since dead people look asleep one might assume that sleep might be a portal into the place where the dead awake. From the benign Good Dream we get the story of Heaven. From Nightmares we're told of Hell.

Then arises the question of who decides who goes to the good place of dreams or the bad place of nightmares. This would be the gods. Since then religion has evolved (more puns?!?) into what it is today. In general the main characteristic of dogmatic fanatic monotheists is their lack of scope.

Play the Odds

A philosopher once pointed out that given the choice between believing in God or Atheism it was very clear that one should choose God. For a Christian stands to gain everything and lose nothing while an Atheists stands to gain nothing and lose everything. As I said, they lack scope.

That logic would work wonderfully if there were only the possibility of the Christian God or no god at all. Sadly, for anyone convinced by that argument, there are literally thousands of gods. (IE deities) I'll give a simplified example...

An Atheist and a Christian are walking down the street arguing theology. They're so into their discussion that they don't notice the speeding bus as they cross the street. Suddenly they find themselves in the presence of Allah who quickly smites both of them as infidels and banishes them to torment. THE END

Another Example

An Atheist, a Christian, and a Muslim are walking down the street... bus... judgement by Aztec god... they all end up being consumed each morning by Kali only to have their flesh renewed each night so that they may be breakfasted upon again. THE END

Hopefully this has made clear to you that even the believer has everything to lose. A world populated by perfect christians would be a world destined for hell if Allah is the judge. What then is the logical choice? A lack of belief. Why you spend your life pandering to the wills of a deity only to find, when it's too late, that you've wasted your life pandering to a false idol and that the real god is going to damn you along with all the other unbelievers?